Courtesy of the Franklin County Historic Preservation Society
This 1928 photo shows bootlegging gangster Charlie Birger, center, on the gallows just before his public hanging in Benton.

•October 31, 2018•

By Barbara Vitello
Of the Daily Herald

When it came to organized crime in Illinois, Chicago-based Prohibition-era gangsters loomed large during the 1920s and 1930s.
Al Capone, Frank Nitti, Lester “Baby Face Nelson” Gillis, Jack “Machine Gun” McGurn and George “Bugs” Moran earned international infamy that persisted for decades after their deaths. For years, the general perception was that when world travelers informed locals they hailed from Chicago, the locals responded with “bang, bang” and a finger-gun gesture.
The combination of enterprising criminals, complicit public officials and Prohibition gave rise to crime syndicates involved in bootlegging, gambling, prostitution, extortion and murder. Organized by ethnicity and geography, the syndicates were known as the Chicago Mob or the Outfit. They produced the likes of Capone, Nelson and Moran — Capone’s rival and the target of an attempted assassination in 1929 known as the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, which claimed the lives of seven men, including Moran associates and an innocent bystander or two. Read More